


forever young

by malignance



Series: while the world burns [1]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-06 08:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20288536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malignance/pseuds/malignance
Summary: When children are cornered and scared, they do not fight, they do not think, they run.





	forever young

**Author's Note:**

> short & (bitter)sweet
> 
> i feel like a lot of my writing nowadays is a little dark/kinda heavy n idk why slkdgj

The thing is, the thing people always seem to forget is, they're still kids.

Mal's feet had touched Auradon soil for the first time, the weight of the Isle balanced precariously on her thin shoulders, and she had only been sixteen. 

Evie, Jay, Carlos, their stories were a little different, bones a little lighter, eyes not so focused. But still, they were children.

They had arrived on Auradon children, and though a lot can happen in a year (as it has, for them), though people can grow in a year (Evie's grades light up a new path, Jay's comradery tells a story, Carlos' openness sings a song, Mal's smiles speak a new language), they stay children.

Yet, the world expects so much from them. They expect a queen of Mal, and that's the last thing she wants to be, but what can a girl say when the world is watching, waiting?

Evie looks on, helplessly, as Mal crumbles under the weight of a kingdom and their people.

Jay's arms, long and sturdy, hold Evie and Carlos close. He reaches out for Mal, but she is already so far away.

When they wake up the next morning, and Mal is gone, none of them are surprised.

Auradon turns on them with a snap. Mal has all but abandoned her role in their story, and so they turn their backs. Evie, Jay, Carlos, they have no place anymore. Not without Mal, not without their queen. 

It's just as well. _It's just as well._

Evie thinks about how black and white everything still is, how she wouldn't have been able to stomach living there another day. But she cries anyway. She cries for a home that was almost theirs, for a life that was almost theirs, for the happiness that was just beyond her grasp.

She cries, and Carlos cries, and Jay makes a face like he _might_ cry, because they are children, because they are _young_.

Ben sometimes thinks he has no power at all.

There's a crown on his head, a kingdom in his hands, but it does not feel like he can move.

Most days he thinks himself a statue, just a mannequin to hold up a crown, a pretty face the people can trust, a puppet easily pushed and pulled. 

The people, _his _people, had wanted Mal for a queen. 

Was it because they didn't want him as king? Was it because he was never really a king in the first place? Was it because they knew he could never protect them like she could?

They push, they push her, they ask her, they want her.

Some nights he hoped they looked his way instead of hers. Some nights he hoped he was a different boy, in a different bed, a different world maybe, invisible in an entirely different and infinitely more bearable way. 

Then he sees it, he sees the how _his _people hammer at Mal's resolve, talking and talking and pushing and pushing until they've broken her. Not in the same way her mother did, not in the same way growing up in the Isle did. This was different, scarier somehow.

When she leaves, he finds he feels nothing.

Not relief, not joy, not sadness, not anger.

She fled, and that was it. 

He looks into his father's eyes, into a hundred other eyes in a crowd, and he understands why.

They've crossed paths before, but not really like this.

The part of Ben that's still very much a boy, starts to feel nervous.

The part of Evie that's still very much a girl, starts to feel shy.

Carlos and Jay are far ahead of Evie now, mind and feet set on home (not the same one, not the old one, but a new one, hopefully a better one). 

She's not worried at the distance between them now, even if the new home she finds eventually is different from theirs, they will still be together. Mal is still with them now, as she knows they are with her, wherever she is. She knows that will never change, not for them.

"Where are you going?"

Ben breaks the silence first, cheeks flushed, eyes settled somewhere near her but not on her.

"Somewhere far, far away from here."

Evie takes a moment to assess him, the way his hair has grown from when they first saw each other, the way his demeanour has changed, deflated. She thinks Auradon might've ruined him the same way it has ruined all of them.

"Would you mind some company?"

He asks her this, halfway hopeful. 

She looks into his eyes, and doesn't think she has anything to lose.

"I wouldn't."

And then she takes his hand, and they run. 

**Author's Note:**

> basically : ppl @ auradon suck & so the vks + ben run away (in this universe there's places that exist other than auradon & the isle for them to live in...)
> 
> also yes this is gna be part of a series ... idk what else im gna add to it i just like this au of ben&evie running away together


End file.
